A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi
6
Adrien Cloutier was a depraved sadist.That was what the tweezer thing meant.
I’d spent the entire weekend trying (and failing) not to think about what he was going to make me do with the stupid things, which was exactly what he’d wanted. The mental torment and anguish had been part of his malicious plan.
“He’s probably going to force you to pluck out all the hairs on your body, one by one,” Jamie theorized on Sunday night once we’d cracked open the second bottle of Shiraz. “Seven hundred million hairs for seven hundred million dollars.”
I’d been tempted to throw the stained cork at her head. “First of all, rude of you to assume I have more hair on my body than Chewbacca. Second of all, there is no way it’s going to be that easy. Or painless.”
Unfortunately, I’d been correct.
Because you know what was a lot more difficult and painful than plucking my entire body bare? Using a tiny pair of stiff tweezers to pick glitter out of dirt.
Apparently, when the hate bomb of doom had gone off, a shit ton of glitter had landed on a bunch of the plants surrounding Adrien’s desk. Thirteen of them to be exact.
“You have twenty-four hours to get it done,” Adrien had said, barely bothering to glance up from his paperwork when I’d walked into his office this morning. “If you finish, then we can talk.”
So, like I said, Adrien Cloutier was a depraved sadist. But he was a depraved sadist who’d underestimated me.
I started with the smallest pot and decided to work my way up. But only after I’d sent out a request for much-needed reinforcements.
“You got the goods?” I asked Jamie in the underground garage an hour later.
She’d gone all out for the occasion—black trenchcoat, heels, gloves, large sunglasses, crimson lipstick, and a dark leather briefcase. She was also entirely “in character” and kept glancing around the lot, trying to hide behind pillars and cars as she snuck to where I was standing out in the open. And I swear I saw her try to dive into a full summersault at one point, before she remembered she was in heels.
My best friend was a freak. I fucking loved her so much.
When Jamie finally reached me, her chin dipped in a curt, professional nod and she handed me the black briefcase. “Good luck, comrade,” she said, saluting me. “See you on the other side.”
“You’re so fucking weird, dude,” I told her. “But also, I kind of love this look on you. Very femme fatale.”
She beamed. “I know. I look amazing. Like, to the point where I’m full-on considering a career change to sexy spy. Or real-life Bond villain.”
That sounded about right.
Adrien was on a call when I stomped back into his office, and his eyebrows did a surprised little twitch when he saw me. He’d probably assumed I’d given up and left because he thought the task was impossible to complete within the given timeframe… which was why he’d assigned it to me in the first place.
I ignored his dark, sticky gaze and made my way back to the couch. Then I dug the gardening gloves, headlamp, extra pair of tweezers, and magnifying glass out of the black briefcase, and got to work.
And exactly twenty-two hours and eight minutes later, I was done. Every single one of the thirteen pots had been de-bedazzled, double-checked, then triple-checked for stubborn strays. Until I was willing to bet what little remained of my sanity that none of them contained anything other than dirt.
I should have asked Jamie to also bring eyedrops, I thought, rubbing at my strained, dry eyes as the sun began to peak out from behind the city skyline. But at least I had a killer view. Adrien’s office was located high enough that—
“You slept here?”
Think of the devil and he doth appear, I guess.
I reluctantly dragged my eyes away from the bruised pink sky and soft, buttery warmth of the sunrise, to where Adrien was standing just outside his open office door, fresh coffee in hand.
And my brain stalled.
It was the exhaustion and the lack of sleep that did it, combined with the fact that I’d been staring at nothing but literal dirt for the last twenty-plus hours. That was what made my brain cells freeze for five agonizingly long heartbeats, not the sight of him in the crisp, midnight-green suit that looked like it had been sewn straight onto his body.
It was not because the suit was the exact same color as his eyes, and it was not because those eyes were currently boring into mine from across the room, pinning my thoughts in place.
It was the lack of sleep. Not him.
“You’re staring again.”
I cleared my throat and blinked my way out of whatever overly tired trance I’d been trapped in and said, “I wasn’t staring.”
The right side of Adrien’s mouth curved ever so arrogantly. “I think you might not know what that word means.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back with a glare as Adrien stepped into his office, his gaze gliding over the thirteen potted plants lined up in front of me.
“I’m done,” I informed him, in case it wasn’t obvious.
Adrien reached for one of the plants and gently nudged a leaf to the side so he could examine my flawless work.
“Here.” I held out the magnifying glass to him with smug pride. He could put these guys under a microscope if he wanted, and he still wouldn’t find a damn—
“Found one.”
My smirk went stale, dread snaking around my heart, dragging it to the pit of my stomach. “What?”
Adrien clucked his tongue with sarcastic disappointment, then lifted the large leaf he’d been inspecting. “There.”
I blinked at the sparkling spec hidden underneath the stem, my mouth parting as a scream built in my throat. Was he fucking joking? “You said my job was to remove the glitter from the soil. The leaves and stems were supposed to have been cleaned already.”
He’d said the janitorial staff had cleaned the majority of the mess, but he wasn’t going to make them dig through dirt. Which was why I’d been tasked with it. That waswhat he’d said.
“Did I?” Adrien mocked. “Are you sure?”
And holy shit, he wasn’t going to do this to me. I was going to kill him if he even thought about doing this to me.
“Yes,” I managed to grind out, even though it felt like my teeth had been sewn shut.
Adrien clocked my anger and smirked, entirely too pleased with how quickly he’d been able to rile me up. And then he fucking did it. The bastard tapped the leaf with his index finger until the little sparkle lost its grip and fell… right onto the soil I’d spent all night clearing.
And oh my god, I was going to be arrested for the murder of Adrien Cloutier. I was going to wrap an entire fucking fern around his stupid neck and strangle the life right out of his freaky eyes. The trial was going to be broadcasted live, and I was going to proudly plead guilty and brand myself as a hero to the people.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I asked, rising to my feet. The edges of my vision were tinting red, and I swear if Alba’s entire livelihood wasn’t on the line, I’d have started kicking and smashing pots and plants.
I was so. Insanely.
Frustrated.
And then he laughed—he fuckinglaughed—at me. Chuckled. Like I was a stupid toddler throwing a stupid tantrum over a stupid toy, and not a full-grown adult running through murder weapons in my head.
The sound of his chuckle grated against my nerves, and I had to physically stop myself from lunging across the table and tackling him to the ground.
I hated him. I hated him.
I glared, my molars threatening to crack and crumble as Adrien walked to his desk, waving a dismissive hand in my general direction. “You can leave now.”
No. Fuck no. “I’m not going anywhere. We had a deal.”
“Yes. And you failed the task,” he said coolly, sitting down.
Fire. I was going to set his stupid plants—this entire stupid office—on fucking fire. “Do you have any ideawhat it actually took for me to get this all done on time?”
My fingers, my eyes, my legs, my neck—everything hurt. Everything was stiff and tired and sore. Everything was depleted and I felt… so exhausted. I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter in almost a decade. I was tired, sore, on the brink of tears, and he couldn’t fucking do this to me.
I wasn’t going to let him do this to me.
“We had a deal,” I repeated, a hint of desperation sneaking into my voice. “You said—you promised—that you’d give Alba her job back if I did this.”
“No,” Adrien purred, shoulders widening as he leaned back in his chair. “I said I’d consider allowing you to earn your sister’s job back if you completed the task on time. Which you failed to do.”
I opened my mouth to bite back but stopped myself just in time. Because I saw where it would lead. I saw the rage and venom in Adrien’s eyes, poorly masked by his cocky smirk.
He hated me.
And I wasn’t talking about a mild, overexaggerated sense of dislike. The man absolutely despised me because of what I’d done and wanted nothing more than to get his revenge. That was what all this was about.
I let out a heavy breath and forced my fists to relax, because as much as I wanted to tell Adrien to go fuck himself with a cactus, what I needed wasto make things right for Alba.
So, I dragged a hand through my hair and stalked across the large office, until I reached his desk.
“You’re taking this out on the wrong person,” I said, failing to keep my voice steady. “Alba doesn’t deserve to be punished like this for what I did, and you know it. You know how much she cares about this job, how hard she’s worked for you.”
Adrien didn’t say anything, but I thought I saw his shoulders stiffen just slightly.
I shifted on my feet. “Don’t do this to her,” I said quietly. “Please. She’s the one that got me this job, and I can’t… None of this was her fault. I swear she… Alba had nothing to do with what happened on Halloween. That was all me.”
My thoughts felt incomplete and fragmented as I stood there, struggling to form full sentences. My throat had started to burn as helpless desperation bloomed in my stomach. Everything ached, from my stiff muscles to the emotion twisting in my chest. I felt like shit.
I felt like a piece of shit.
“You’re angry at me so take it out on me,” I pleaded. “Do whatever you want. Cops, lawyers, whatever. Just leave her out of this because she really, really doesn’t deserve to be punished for a crime I committed.”
Nothing. He gave me absolutely nothing. Just sat there and stared at me with bland distaste.
“Do you want me to beg again?” My voice and lips trembled with that one. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this… anything. Tired, frustrated, desperate, sad, angry.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like crying.
“What do you want?” I asked again. “Seriously, there’s got to be something I could do—”
“Time,” Adrien said.
“What?”
“Time,” he said again. “I’ll allow you to earn your sister’s job back with your time.”
I let out an unsteady breath and tried to blink away the fog of mental exhaustion. “Okay. All right. Sure. What… what does that entail, exactly?”
Adrien leaned forward, intertwining his fingers on his desk. “I spent months working on securing the deal you managed to ruin in under twenty seconds with your unwarranted physical assault. Six months of schmoozing, presentations, redeye flights to the other side of the world, and late-night meetings to make up for time differences—all of which your sister helped with, by the way. It wasn’t just my efforts that went up in flames after your little stunt.” He paused, tapping an index finger on the back of his fist. “You’ve set me back six months of hard work, seven hundred million investment dollars, and a shit ton of contacts and resources that would have come with that partnership. Not to mention the damage-control hell I’m still being dragged through with the media.
“Your selfish carelessness has cost me time, money, my sleep, and my sanity. You’ve gone through my things without permission, wreaked absolute havoc on my office, and I have yet to hear anything even remotely close to an apology come out of your mouth.” The muscles in his jaw had tensed during the recap as if just thinking about it pissed him off.
A heavy and expectant silence followed, and I knew what he was waiting for. The apology was at the very tip of my tongue, urging to be let out. But I just… couldn’t do it. I physically couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.
So, I dropped my gaze instead.
“One month,” Adrien eventually said. The words were tight and strained like he’d barely been able to shove them out from between his clenched teeth. “I want one month of your undivided time, starting next week. You’ll be at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you make it to the end of the thirty days, I’ll reinstate your sister’s position and she’ll be compensated for the full duration of her maternity leave.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “What about… what about the next thirty days? Will she be compensated for that too?”
“Yes.”
“And I’d need to be available for the full twenty-four hours every single day?”
“Without exception.” Firm. Nonnegotiable.
“Okay. Can you… give me an example of what you might need from me at two in the morning?”
Adrien shrugged. “You’ll find out.”
He was insufferable.
“The reason I ask is because I live kind of far from here. I don’t have a car and I don’t think the buses run in the middle of the night, so I’m not entirely sure I can—”
I cut myself off as Adrien reached into his pocket, took out a set of keys, and tossed them to me. “Keys to a two-bedroom apartment in my building, where you’ll be living for the next four weeks. Any other concerns?”
My mouth flapped like a freshly caught fish. Surely, he was joking. “You want… you’re expecting me to move into your building? The one you live in?”
“I’m expecting you to be available to me at all times.”
I looked down at the keys, then up at him, then back down again. And then I pinched my forearm as hard as I could.
“Not a nightmare, I’m afraid,” Adrien said.
Could he blame me for checking?
“Okay,” I muttered after a long, dense pause. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. “I’ll agree, but only if I can get it in writing.” I needed to make sure he’d hold up his end of the bargain this time.
Adrien nodded, a dangerous glint lighting up his dark eyes.
And I knew, right then and there, that he was going to do everything he could to make me regret this.